Our start in Monaghan began in Carrickmacross. This is the nearest town to the parish of Magheracloone where all three of our great-great-greats began life: James Casey, Owen Burnes and Catherine Brennan. We searched in vain for a tourist center, but found the Chamber of Commerce/Community Center where Kevin Gartlan began pointing us in the right direction.

He gave us the parish map of Magheracloone, which contained the townlands, the location of three cemetaries and the roads winding through it. Parishes were divided in the old days into "townlands" of various sizes--some no larger than 50 acres, some well over 100. There are civil, RC and Church of Ireland parishes, all with approximately the same boundaries. In each parish there may be more than one church and more than one cemetary.

In Magheracloone there are two RC churches, and one centrally located Church of Ireland. This one, St. Molua's, had the oldest cemetary surrounding it, which contained both RC and Cof E graves, some dating back to the 1700's.

 

Monaghan has a privately run geneology center, and the fellow there is so overburdened with a backlog of requests he wouldn't see anyone. Kevin suggested a knowledgeable priest to us, who was on holiday.

The library at Carrickmacross had a history of Monaghan and a history of the Shirleys in Ireland. This pitiful library had a broken copier, few books, but a most helpful librarian, who showed us what she could and called the county library in Clones for us, where we made an appointment for the next day.

Our most interesting and most informal history source was a little Irishman whose eyes actually twinkled. Linus McDonnell, pub owner, amateur historian and great walker entertained and shocked us with his stories--all punctuated with winks, asides and theatrical gestures. He is the one who described the infamous Shirley landowners and explained the ways in which the English landlords maintained their iron grip on the Irish population during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Lands in Ireland were awarded by the English Crown to rough soldiers and other coarse individuals who won in battle or performed other services to the King. They were not the aristocrats we associate with English nobility. The sources we read indicated that they were often bitterly disappointed when they got to Ireland and found how poor their lands, tenants and shabby manor houses were, and how isolated and unimproved the country was. Of course, the lands they were given already belonged to someone--many Irish someones, who overnight became tenants.

Magheracloone today appears pastoral and green--rolling land, sheep, vistas that remind us of central Kentucky, northern Iowa or Illinois. No rivers, mountains, grand lakes or ruined castles. It is pleasant and just short of charming.

The Shirleys were, according to one book we read, among the worst landlords in Ireland. Linus related stories that were horrifying. He said they always, not sometimes but always for over a hundred years, exercised their so-called "right" of first night: they got the new bride right after the wedding. Husbands, fathers or brothers who occasionally protested were killed or maimed, one bride was tied by her hair to a horse and dragged to her death. Linus said that in spite of the fact the English did everything to wipe out the records of the Irish, deny them schooling and wipe out the language and the church, the stories are nonetheless still passed down.

The penal laws were repealed in 1798, after the "risings" of 1798 that were being commemorated all over Ireland while we we there. These laws denied the Irish the right to own or inherit land, attend school, speak Gaelic, or practice Roman Catholicism. This fact alone contributes to the sketchiness of the records and the few remaining gravestones. In addition of course, most Irish practicing Catholics had become very poor. Irish had no recourse to law.

The Shirleys apparently were considered poor landlords by the history texts for other reasons than their appalling behavior. When they took over, many of their "tenants" had owned substantial acreage. The Irish, unlike the English, divided the land equally among the sons. So a family owning 100 acres in 1750, may have had many descendents each owning only 5 -10 acres by the turn of the century. In fact by the early years of the famine, the Shirleys "assisted emigration" by booking passage to Australia, Canada and America for large numbers of their tenants. This was not a generous gesture. If they were able to get the tenants to leave, the Shirleys could redistribute the land. "Plantation" is the term for bringing over Scottish and English farmers to "plant" the Irish estates taken from evicted or emigrated Irish. A two acre holding by a fellow with five children to feed was not profitable to the Shirleys. The tenant couldn't pay his potato tithe. If 40 or 50 such small time sharecroppers left, the Shirleys could get someone to take over who could pay the tithe.

Our great-greats left before the famine and were not part of the assisted emigration. The records of the assisted emigration were published in the Breffni Journal. (Monaghan was once the Kingdom of Breffni, as part of Cavan was once the Kingdom of Offaly). Linus told us that at one time, the old (earl?) Shirley would allow vistors to look at the Shirley Estate records. Since the new person inherited, the records were sent to Belfast.

There are no parish (birth, marriage or death) records for Magheracloone from the time we are interested in (pre 1840).

The Clones library has microfilm of tithe records of 1824-30. These are supposed to list under each parish, by townland, the holdings of each tenant. Of the (about) 86 townlands in Magheracloone, we found 31 townlands that contained a Byrnes, Casey, Brennan or Cassidy. Our Owen Byrnes was born in 1810, Patrick Casey in 1812, and Catherine Brennan in 1814. We hoped when we placed all the holdings on the map, that we would find an area where these three family names were concentrated and that might give us a clue. Well, so much for pipedreams. There are records of 47 holdings belonging to a Byrnes. Many of the names were the same, and we wondered if one person might own scattered acreage. Most people in Ireland who know anything assured us this was probably not the case. I am not completely convinced. There is a Catherine Byrnes, widow, who has three small holdings, and I still believe that is probably one person. Nonetheless, there are many many Byrneses, all probably related to each other in some way. In the absence of birth or death records we will never know. Kathleen has copied some records of priests' names from this parish, perhaps that will shed slightly more light.

The Cassidys are easiest to trace. In the townland of Feahoe, three of them owned 78 acres.

Caseys are found only in the townland of Clonminon (three with 35 acres)

Assorted Brennans owned 14 acres in Clontrain, five a. in Derrynaghlaghe, 20 a. in Derryleeg.

At some point in the future I will scan the map of the parish and write in the names where the assorted Byrnes, Caseys, Cassidys and Brennans scraped a living.

We found two gravestones of Byrneses in St. Molua's; one commemorates 4 or more--was very hard to read-- and one erected for a beloved daughter who died at 22. Kathleen has copied those and I will include the writing at a later date. In light of the many many Byrneses in the area, I can only conclude we were too poor for headstones.

We have not attempted to find our Doyle ancestor from the parish of Tramore in Wexford or his wife Mary Goilsdan from Nenagh in Tipperary. Although we were near Nenagh, a geneological search is 50 Lbs. and we don't have the parish info...Next time!

Our conclusion is: we have made no conclusions. We will probably next go to Dubuque and Waucoma and continue where we should have begun! We'll compose a synopsis of our trip next and send it along, with photos scanned in. I will create another version of this in .html with color pictures of the areas later in the week, and send it along if you can open it!